Making Peace Visible

Herds of goats, pomegranate trees in bloom, and ancient architecture are just some of the things you might witness while walking The Abraham Path, a collection of walking trails established in the past fifteen years through parts of Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, and Iraq. But the trail is also engineered for human experiences. Connecting cities and villages, it offers the opportunity to make one-on-one connections in a contested region. It's a kind of subtle peace-building project, but it's also an economic development project, an education project, and more. The path's development, spurred by American peacebuilders, has been met with some skepticism by journalists. But as locals have taken ownership of the trail, a good deal of stories have been published that convey a sense of hope, including a cover story in a travel-themed issue of The New York Times Magazine in April 2022. Our guests for this episode are Joshua Weiss, a peacebuilder and co-founder of The Abraham Path Initiative, and Anisa Mehdi, the Executive Director of the project and a veteran broadcast journalist. Making Peace Visible is a project of War Stories Peace Stories. Our mission is to bring journalists and peacebuilders together to re-imagine the way the news media covers peace and conflict, and to facilitate expanded coverage of global peace and reconciliation efforts. Join the conversation on Twitter: @warstoriespeaceMaking Peace Visible is hosted by Jamil Simon, and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Music in this episode is by One Man Book, Doyeq, and Les Portes Du Futur.  ABOUT THE SHOW The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.orgSupport our work Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleBluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

When Colombian filmmaker Juan Carlos Borerro worked on films or TV shows in the countryside as a young man, the crew would have to stop shooting and run from the FARC when the guerillas came near. Everyone he knew had a family member who had been kidnapped or killed, and he never thought he would live to see an end to the war in his country. So when the government and the FARC forged a peace accord in 2016, he set out to document how the agreement came together. Borrero’s documentary “A Call for Peace” tells the story of the peace process in Colombia, through interviews with international peace builders who played key roles behind the scenes.In this episode, in conversation with host Jamil Simon, Borrero tells the story of peace in Colombia as not just a singular occurrence, but an unfolding that drew on past peace processes, and can inform future ones. You’ll also hear clips from the film. You can watch the film “A Call for Peace” for free here: vimeo.com/305983614. Enter password peace2019. Learn more at acallforpeace.org.Making Peace Visible is a project of War Stories Peace Stories. Our mission is to bring journalists and peacebuilders together to re-imagine the way the news media covers peace and conflict, and to do everything possible to facilitate expanded coverage of global peace and reconciliation efforts.Making Peace Visible is produced by Andrea Muraskin. ABOUT THE SHOW The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.orgSupport our work Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleBluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

Mari Fitzduff, is a peacebuilder and the author of a fascinating new book, Our Brains at War: The Neuroscience of Conflict and Peacebuilding. Mari’s book is deeply relevant to the polarization and violence that is happening right now in America. Our Brains at War explains a lot about the brain chemistry that’s driving the anger and violence we are seeing, almost every day in the U.S.Making Peace Visible is brought to you by the War Stories Peace Stories Project, working to connect journalists and peace-builders to accelerate and elevate stories on reconciliation efforts in the mainstream media. ABOUT THE SHOW The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.orgSupport our work Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleBluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

This is an interview with Nina Streich, the Director and Founder of the Global Peace Film Festival, which operates out of Orlando, Florida. Nina and her partner, Kelly DeVine have probably seen more films on peace than any two people on the planet. Nina talks about the nature of films on peace and what motivates filmmakers to make them. This year, the festival will be celebrating its 20th anniversary. Making Peace Visible is brought to you by the War Stories, Peace Stories Project, working to connect journalists and peace-builders to accelerate and elevate stories on reconciliation efforts in the mainstream media. ABOUT THE SHOW The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.orgSupport our work Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleBluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show! 

This is an interview with Julia Roig, Chairman of the Board of The Alliance for Peacebuilding and Founder of The Horizons Project. The Horizons Project is dedicated to developing new narratives to help make the peacebuilding process more accessible to the public. Making Peace Visible is brought to you by the War Stories, Peace Stories Project, working to connect journalists and peace-builders to accelerate and elevate stories on reconciliation efforts in the mainstream media. ABOUT THE SHOW The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. Our associate producer is Faith McClure. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.orgSupport our work Connect on social:Instagram @makingpeacevisibleLinkedIn @makingpeacevisibleBluesky @makingpeacevisible.bsky.social We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!